Red Bean Burger Recipes

I usually experiment with new barbecue sauces this time of the season. They're easy to make, store in the refrigerator and everyone loves them with chicken wings or veggie patties (we have a home full of vegetarians).

It's getting hot in the Bay area, and it's time for us to organize a pool party to celebrate the end of school and the beginning of summer holidays. Last night, we prepared soyrizo mushroom patties to go with honey barbecue sauce. The mixture of the patties was made of soyrizo, chopped button mushrooms, liquid smoke, bread for texture and kidney beans for added protein.

Unlike many vegetarian dishes, these burgers won't leave you wishing for meat. The texture is interesting and non-uniform, and the flavor is very bold. It's not a meat substitute, but rather a unique dish unto itself. Little Aria and I loved them too!

This is one of our family's staple vegetarian dishes. It's rich in nutrients, healthy and very tasty. If, like me, you're not a vegetarian, you won't miss meat with this veggie pattie recipe. The texture is very similar to a ground turkey burger and the addition of garlic, onion, red chili flakes and sourdough croutons brings plenty of flavor to the dish.

I like using black turtle beans. You can find them in most supermarkets in the dried bean aisle and sometimes in a canned version in Indian markets. You can use most black beans interchangeably, even though turtle beans are a little smaller. Just make sure you don't use black soy beans, which have a totally different consistency and taste.

These veggie burgers are prepared with gluten free bread. I made scallion-flavored croutons out of the bread and mixed them with kidney beans. I served the burgers on a bed of scallion and maple-flavored barbecue sauce; if you were putting these patties in a bun, you could always slather the sauce on the inside of the bun instead of on the plate. No mustard or mayo required!

Unlike many vegetarian dishes, these burgers won't leave you dreaming of meat. The texture is interesting and non-uniform, and the flavor is in your face. It's not a meat substitute, but rather a unique dish unto itself. I don't think meat would add anything to the patties and even the most ardent of carnivores should be able to enjoy them as is. Ok, maybe next to a steak or something. But they'd still enjoy it!

The scallion flavor in this recipe is courtesy of Boyajian's fantastic Scallion Oil. Boyajian has an impressive array of oils, vinegars and vinaigrettes with some pretty exotic flavors. I love infused oils, and have been playing around recently with some of the products in Boyajian's lineup. Boyajian sponsored my development of recipes with their products and of course photographs of the dishes. I'll be sharing my culinary creations with you this week, and (shameless plug), if you'd like to try out any of the products, you can purchase them directly from Boyajian's website.